


Burning Questions

by Merfilly



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: Rebels, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Non-Speaking Maz Kanata Cameo, Other, Past Relationship(s), Redemption
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-04
Updated: 2018-04-04
Packaged: 2019-04-18 04:00:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,387
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14204577
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Merfilly/pseuds/Merfilly
Summary: There are more questions than answers, especially when the questions stay unasked. Kanan sees a trap, but Ahsoka presses on with Barriss anyway.





	Burning Questions

**Author's Note:**

> Rather than link to the original drabble, as it is in a collection of same, I'm reposting it here in this fic in the first section, italicized.

_The door opened, and Barriss did not even flinch. She could only control her reactions, keep those to herself._

_The boots with a monkey on one side were the first things she saw, but then the person who had entered was crouching down in front of her._

_Orange skin. White markings. Blue chevrons._

_How did her nightmare now stand in front of her?_

_"Come on, Barriss. We don't have much time before the Imps try and take this place back," the nightmare said to her._

_"I don't—"_

_"You do. Now come on, and we can sort it all out later."_

* * *

"Look, I'm not saying you're wrong," Kanan said in a low voice.

"Yes, you are." Ahsoka said it in a calm, even tone, and Kanan was suddenly reminded of his Master. **How** did this woman, who he knew was only a few years older, channel the Jedi Calm so damned easily?

He tried to find a new tactic. "I may have already been in the field, but I heard about it. My Master was not pleased with how any of it was handled."

"Nobody really was, Kanan," Ahsoka told him. "Especially me, and I don't mean for my part. Barriss was misguided, lashed out in violence that cost lives, and also managed to say a lot of unpleasant truths. Where do you think the Order would be if anyone of those Masters had stepped back and considered that?"

"Doesn't change she chose wrong," Kanan said.

"How many of us didn't choose the wrong path at some point? We might not have a body count that is as easily quantified, but somehow? I think mine, at least, is probably higher," she said. "Look at it this way. The Empire never remade her into an Inquisitor. What does that tell you?"

"That she's not the right kind of evil for them."

As soon as he said the words, he wished they had never been uttered, watching the calm crackle at the edges. Then Ahsoka yanked it all back in, and he knew he'd lost any chance of reasoning with her.

"I will take her with me, and step away from activities for a time, Spectre-1," she said firmly, turning on her heel to go collect the rescued prisoner and leave on her own ship.

Kanan wondered if it would be the last time he saw her, or if she'd be the next Inquisitor they all faced when Barriss Offee proved to be a trap more insidious than her Master had been.

* * *

They fared in silence for the first few days. At least, Barriss did. She studied Ahsoka Tano, known and unknown all at once, as the woman capably piloted them away from the Empire. She watched as the woman her friend had become moved with familiarity through the ship that was rigged for her and the astromech to handle, despite being designed to have a copilot.

Her mind was slowly beginning to come to the questions. Why had Ahsoka come for her, what happened next, what did she want of herself and of Ahsoka?

Did she want this to lead to hashing out that awful nightmare?

Did she need Ahsoka to vent her anger and betrayal?

Was she hoping for forgiveness on some level?

There were no answers, but then, Barriss's entire life had been lacking in those, while holding far too many questions.

* * *

They came to a planet that teemed with life, the kind that might be considered unsavory and that Barriss just thought of in terms of likely threat. She had learned to do that in prison, during her rare confinements among others.

Mostly, she had lived in solitary since being taken into custody so long ago. 

Ahsoka spoke with a being that Barriss could not place by species, one that Barriss thought might be a woman, and then guided her into the impressive castle-like edifice. They skirted the bar itself, going up some stairs and turning down a quiet corridor until Ahsoka stopped them at a door.

"We'll be staying here. And the single room is for safety, Barriss. This may be a haven by comparison for me, but it's not safe by a long shot."

Barriss nodded mutely, and stepped inside, followed by her one-time friend, one-time scapegoat. The door was closed and locked by both physical and electronic means, before Ahsoka tossed her bag on one bed, claiming it, leaving the other for the bag she had given Barriss.

"There's a water shower through there," Ahsoka said, pointing. "The door closes and locks; I've used this room before. Water's not rationed here for that. Take as long as you need. I need to meditate."

Barriss looked at her, then the opening, and back again. "Am I still a prisoner?" she asked, her voice low.

Ahsoka drew in a breath, then shook her head. "No. I would prefer you stay with me, long enough for me to help you, but if you want to leave? Any one of those crews could be convinced to take you somewhere in exchange for skilled work.

"I didn't get you out of there to just throw you to the anoobas, Barriss. We should work out where you go and how, together, before we part ways. That's my opinion."

Barriss dropped her eyes. Why would Ahsoka want to help her?

More questions, and the answers were too puzzling to come to mind.

* * *

Working it out was partly Ahsoka getting her a rundown of the state of the galaxy and partly just recuperating strength and fitness. Ahsoka never brought up the past, and Barriss was willing to let it go, even as the questions ate at her.

She had set Ahsoka up as the fall guy in a plan that had killed many, attacked her directly, and betrayed everything the younger girl had held dear. Yet, Ahsoka ignored the issue, working out with her, and bartering for more vegetarian foods, for clothing that concealed, for a small blaster that could easily be hidden.

That last, as Ahsoka laid it on her bed, made the questions too potent.

"Why?"

Barriss looked up, meeting her one-time friend's eyes. What she saw there was clearly the weight of this subject actually having been considered and measured out. Ahsoka was no longer a girl who jumped first and reasoned later. This was a woman who carried a ledger and carefully calculated each step now.

"Because you were not wrong in your thoughts on the Order, the Republic. Because I think I can see how the war led you to the point it did, even if I would wish it had not. Because I think you should have had support that could see you were falling toward that moment, and you did not.

"Because, ultimately, if I am to be who I am needed to be, I must learn to reach out and help those who hurt me find a better way, for the sake of all." Ahsoka then drew in a deep breath, and said the last quietly. "Because, at the end of it all, you were my friend, and I want that person to have a chance at a better life."

Barriss could not hold the gaze any longer, and looked instead at the blaster. "You still are taking a risk, on the memory of someone I can never be again."

"I don't expect you to be her. She was lost and consumed by lives we neither one should have been living. But you don't have to be the woman in my courtroom, either." Ahsoka moved closer, not touching, not fully in her space, but reaching out with one hand into Barriss's view. "Find that person with me, or without, Barriss. Just don't… don't give up. If you give up? Then that's one more person destroyed by the Order and the Empire alike."

Barriss glanced back up, then at the hand. Could she take it? Could she open to a life that was uncharted, no script or regimen to follow?

Ahsoka was waiting, past the length of time Barriss expected. She had to choose, for the and to be taken or pushed away.

Uncertainly, she placed her hand in Ahsoka's.

"For now, I will follow you," Barriss said softly.

"For as long as you allow, I will keep you above the dark," Ahsoka promised.


End file.
